CVG Interviews Mark Hamill

ComputerandVideogames.com has an interview with Mark Hamill discussing his performance as Joker through the animated Batman franchise, Star Wars, his video game voice work, and how opinion has changed in Hollywood regarding voice acting in video games.

Oh, and I normally don’t link to articles that link to the interview I’m linking to, but you absolutely must see this image that Joystiq.com created to accompany their mention of Hamill’s interview.

And speaking of Batman, I’ve updated a previous feature on the voices of Batman.

Also on a related note, Mania.com offers a retrospective on “Batman: The Animated Series,” making an observation on the importance of the voice casting:

[T]he Joker…is notable for the fact that he gave Mark Hamill a whole new career for himself in voice acting. The series not only refined the characters in this series but even refined someone outside of the series. Mark Hamill was only known for one thing for his career and that was for his role of Luke Skywalker. It’s no slouch role, but it’s still one role. Thanks to his iconic portrayal of the Joker, Hamill was given new life as a major prolific voice actor.

Hamill was originally only in for a guest voice-role before the producers noticed they had no one to play the Joker. They offered the role to Hamill and he nailed the part perfectly. The way Hamill would cheerfully express the Joker’s disturbed feelings flawlessly suited what the series was going for. A major part of his success attributes to the contributions of the other voice actors. Instead of simply reading the words from a script separately from the rest of the cast, the crew recorded their voices together in a studio where they have the benefit of reacting to one another. The result led to being totally in complete character without missing a beat. That really sounds like super fun and I’m sure they all enjoyed working with each other rather than working separately.